


Say Something

by Unforth



Series: Tumblr Ficlets: Supernatural [16]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Castiel doesn't know how to human, Claire Novak/Original Female Character - Freeform, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-28 12:47:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10831578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unforth/pseuds/Unforth
Summary: Tumblr ficlet written to the prompt: canonish where Cas texts Claire regularly and he finds out she’s dating kind of seriously and he freaks out a little and Dean has to deal with him.





	Say Something

**Author's Note:**

> The past couple weeks, I've taken prompts for short fics and written and posted them on Tumblr. I wanted to post them on AO3 as well but have been considering how best to do so. A quick survey of my subscribers and followers suggests that people would prefer if I post them all as individual stories and put them in a series together instead of as multiple chapters on the same file or any other of several options, so that's what I'm doing.
> 
> Please note that I generally do not take "out of nowhere" prompts, cause I don't have time, but I will sometimes ask people to send me ideas and I'll write them in the order I receive them. 
> 
> You can follow me on Tumblr at [unforth-ninawaters](unforth-ninawaters.tumblr.com).
> 
> Make sure you read the prompt! 
> 
>  
> 
> [~original post~](http://unforth-ninawaters.tumblr.com/post/160348739208/pandora-of-antioch-said-ohhhhmmmdo-i-want)
> 
>  
> 
> Prompt, from pandora-of-antioch:  
> Ohhh…Hmmm….do I want smut or fluff….Okay, uh how about canonish where Cas texts Claire regularly and he finds out she’s dating kind of seriously and he freaks out a little and Dean has to deal with him. Is that okay?

“You’re, uh, you’re awfully quiet,” said Claire nervously.

_She’s dating!_

“I’m always quiet,” Castiel deflected, keeping his voice flat.

_She’s dating a girl!_

“I mean, sure, yeah ya are, but this is…” There was a faint tinkling sound, the meaning of which Castiel couldn’t fathom. “You know what, never mind. Forget I said anything. I don’t even know why I - why _you_  - this is _pointless_!”

_How is she old enough to date?!_

“Wait, I–”

It was too late. Claire had hung up on him.

Castiel heaved a sigh.

He supposed he had that coming. 

Over the past few years, Castiel thought he’d done decently navigating the perils of the relationship with his dead vessel’s child. He appreciated the nuance and challenge of her situation, and wouldn’t have been offended or surprised if she’d wanted nothing to do with him. When she avoided him, when she gave him the cold shoulder, when she was rude to him, when she gave him the occasional shy smile or cracked a joke before she remembered that he wasn’t her father - all of that Castiel understood.

He didn’t understand when she _actually_  tried to treat him as a father figure.

“How’d things go with widget?” Dean asked brightly, striding into the small lounge where Castiel had settled in the bunker to make his calls.

“There’s nothing wrong with my cell phone and I see no other ‘widget’s’ in the room,” replied Castiel.

“That well, huh,” Dean said. He gave Castiel a sympathetic look and dropped onto the other end of the sofa so heavily that the springs squeaked and bounced. Scowling, Castiel rode the shifting cushions, maintaining his posture.

“I was speaking with Claire,” Castiel snapped. Dean _knew_  that, why was he being obtuse?

“Ayup…I knew that?” Dean replied with a puzzled furrow of his brow that suggested _he_  thought _Castiel_  was being obtuse.

“Surely you have something _better_  to do with your time.”

“Woaaaah, down boy! What’s got your panties in a bunch?”

“As we have established to your eternal disappointment, I don’t _wear_  panties, Dean, I don’t like the way they ride up in the crack between my–”

“What _happened_ , Cas?” Dean interrupted, going from grinning and jocular to serious and direct so quickly that Castiel startled out of his fit of pique.

“Sorry,” Castiel mumbled.

“Yo - it’s cool, I’ve been dealing with Sam’s PMS for 20 plus years, but–”

“It’s not ‘cool.’”

“Neither are air quotes, we’ve been over this.”

“You do not deserve to be my…my… _whipping boy_ , to take the brunt of my anger simply because I am poor at expressing myself.” Castiel sighed and let his head drop on the couch cushion. His skull clunked unpleasantly as he accidentally whacked the wood of the frame backer.

“Whipping?” said Dean pensively. “Hey, I’ll try anything once.”

“Claire is dating,” Castiel admitted. “It sounds serious; she and another girl…another woman…have been together for several months. Apparently, she told her partner about Hunting, and angels. And this woman didn’t run screaming.”

Dean whistled. “Sounds like a keeper. So what’s the issue?”

“What was I supposed to _say_?” Castiel’s exasperation and confusion exploded.

“Uh…congrats and enjoy?” suggested Dean.

“But she’s _dating_!”

“So?”

“And she expected me to say _something_!”

“And?”

“And I’m not _Jimmy Novak_!” Castiel burst out. “I’ll never _be_  Jimmy Novak! She wanted…I _think_  she wanted her father’s validation on her first serious relationship but I’m _not_  her father and I’m the reason she doesn’t _have_  a _real_  father to share this news with and _what am I supposed to say_?”

“Ohhh,” Dean said softly. Shaking his head, he scooched down the couch until he was beside Castiel, their legs pressed together. An unpleasant shiver trailed down Castiel and he realized he was trembling, had been trembling, breaths coming too quickly, head thick. “Cas…Cas, look at me.” Biting his lip, Castiel did as Dean asked. “There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just gonna go there. Cas, Claire knows her dad is dead, knows it more profoundly than you can imagine. Trust me. I know. I’ve got some experience with missing fathers, and absent fathers, and disinterested fathers, and dead fathers. She’s already got a surrogate mother - Jody’s fillin’ that role damn well - and after everything that’s happened…did it occur to you that she just…wanted to tell you?”

“But _why_?” Castiel felt like a broken record.

“‘Cause when humans have shit happen that they’re happy about, they like to share it with the people they care about,” Dean said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Taking a deep breath, another, another, Castiel let that settle in. 

“So I should have entered into her happiness and expressed my support?” he asked finally. Dean nodded. Castiel let his thoughts continue to percolate. As frenetic and high energy and jocular as Dean could be sometimes, these moments were Dean was an ocean of rock-solid calm against which Castiel’s tide broke were some of his favorites. In eons of life, Castiel had never achieved the steadiness that Dean slipped into as easily as a second skin. 

“Did you tell Sam when you were happy about us?” asked Castiel. Dean went stiff, and Castiel regretted the question. “Sorry, that was highly inappropriate - forget I–”

“Dang, Cas, whaddaya take me for? ‘Course I told Sam.”

“You _did_?”

“Yeah, and he gave me his blessing and said if I ever hurt ya, he’d kick my ass.”

Castiel laughed, tension shattering, laughed until he couldn’t sit up straight, laughed until Dean laughed with him and they crumbled together in delight, laughed until tears streamed down his face. He couldn’t have said why it was so funny, had never understood humor, only knew that it was _hilarious_. 

Only when quiet stillness fell once more did Dean say, “So now what?”

Castiel pulled out his cellphone.

_To: Claire_

_Sorry I behaved strangely. Your girlfriend sounds wonderful. I’m very happy for you. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help. I’ve heard chocolates go over well._

Flashing the screen toward Dean, Castiel awaited his nod of approval before hitting send.

“Gonna send me chocolates, Cas?” teased Dean.

“You usually prefer I send cheeseburgers.”

“From your mouth to God’s ear!”

“Not generally, no, I have a poor track record of my father listening to me.”

Dean snorted. “Enough of this! Get your feathery ass back to my bed.”

“There are no feathers on my–”

“ _Git_!”


End file.
